WHY DESTROY YOURSELF? WHY DIE BEFORE YOUR TIME? THE KEEPERS OF THE HOUSE TREMBLE. DESIRE IS NO LONGER STIRRED. DO NOT CONFORM ANY LONGER TO THE PATTERN OF THIS WORLD.

Tuesday, 23 February 2016

End Of Block - Part 2

I've started a long short story entitled A Satellite For Me, about a man who is being harassed by a satellite. Now that makes for a great original premise, if I do say so myself. No structure, no plot, no outline...I'm just winging it all the way. The going has slowed down after six and a half thousand words, but I'm just waiting for an exit strategy now, some form of an ending. Once I have that, I can go in for the kill. It's good to have the main gist of it done though. By the time I publish this, it should be complete (or not). Depends on how long it pans out. Ideal length would be about ten thousand words, enough for a short standalone book. Otherwise, I could put it into an anthology. I'm still in this mental health rehab, and it's boring me nuts. Aw man, the boredom! It's shocking and it's chronic. I'm quite literally bored as soon as I get up out of bed. I'm getting absolutely no exercise or gym. I'm not even walking anywhere apart from the local shop to buy tobacco I don't even want. The food is hit and miss, spaghetti and fishcakes for lunch today...and that qualifies as a miss by the way. All there is to do is watch TV, and I'm not big on TV at the best of times. There's a separate DVD room where I can chill on my own for a few hours (not now), but my attention span is struggling to watch films at the moment. I can't sit through one without getting up to fidget about three or four times in between. I'm restless. Bored, and restless...never the best combination.

Smoking offers something to do because it gets you outside into the smoking shelters. You get some fresh air, plus there's a social side to it as well. Quite often a rollie is the only thing that gets me up in the morn, and I'm going back to bed by half five in the afternoon. Too much sleeping is linked to depression, I know, but the boredom really is that bad. I don't get asleep until nine-ish, so for three hours I'm just lying there with Radio 4 on. I've been taking my mind elsewhere, to a young couple in love, to distract myself from the present situation. It's nice, fantasising, almost like meditation, because I think happy and positive thoughts. I kinda need to mix it in with my fiction and I'll be onto a winner. Why a young couple in love I don't know. Maybe because that best summarises happiness. I'm thinking of them making love every evening and ringing each other up all the time. Of them sharing cooked dinners and bottles of wine. I wonder to myself: Am I envious? Am I jealous? Am I spiteful and bitter and resentful? It's not like I haven't been there. I'd had my taste of both youth and love. It's just that it didn't last long enough. That's the kind of thing one wants to last forever. But it doesn't, does it? Because nothing does. It arrives too late and departs too quickly. Love does, in my experience, anyway. As for youth, well, you know the saying: It's wasted on the young. Over before you know it.

Saw the psychiatrist last week. I walked out in the end. There's only so much bullshit a man can take. It's hard, been told you're ill, and being treated like you're ill. I am not ill! I AM NOT ILL! I feel like grabbing her and screaming this into her face. But of course, that would be the action of an ill person. Once you have that diagnosis, you can't win. It also gives harassers extra licence to torment you further. It destroys your word forever. Nobody believes you. What goes on to targeted individuals is hard to believe in the first place, but if they think you are nuts as well then your testimony is practically worthless. Still, it's all we have, and it's the truth. The assumption that we have a mental illness is false. No amount of doctors can prove otherwise. I take solace in the reality of the truth. Sometimes, it feels like only I know it.

Got a tribunal next week. I've been waiting three months for it. With a bit of some much deserved luck, they'll take me off my section. If they do, I'll discharge myself immediately. If they don't, I think I will start to lose faith and refuse my medication. I'm totally against meds, but they do help with sleep, and sleep helps with boredom. It's horrible waiting for something out of your hands. They promised me leave before I came here, but I still ain't got it. Social services are involved again, safeguarding my stepson. It's a nightmare. All I can do is be patient and calm and not react angrily. I've never done anything negative in front of him and I never would. I believe I am a good role model for him. I am not monetarily successful, but there's more to nurturing relationships than cash. We have always got along great and I stress again that I have never subjected him to any 'disturbing behaviours' that social services are so concerned about. I actually cannot go back to my own home at the moment, because he is staying there with my girlfriend. They moved in when they lost their house. All I did was do them a favour and spare them homelessness but now I am being punished for it. We are a tight family unit currently being destroyed by my recent incarceration. All I did was have a bad day and end up on Runcorn bridge but have since lost my liberty for six months and it's still not over yet. I may as well have gotten busted for something.

I truly adore my stepson's company. He is bright and sprightly and clever and funny. There's something about been around youngsters that keeps you connected to your own youth. It's an education listening to him as he develops and grows. For social services to ban me seeing him again (we've been through all this before, it took a whole year of going to stressful meetings to get him of the child protection register) really hurts. He was only put on it in the first place because I was hospitalised for hearing voices. All I did wrong was start hearing voices, which by now you'll understand is nothing more than getting harassed by organised stalkers using Voice-to-Skull microwave methods. I've said it before but it's worth hearing again: The five worst things about hearing voices are these:

Actually hearing the voices: It really is a quite unimaginable form of suffering.

Loss of liberty: Being sane in an insane environment is not much fun at all.

Drugs: Being pumped full of medications isn't all that great either.

Nobody believes you: You are now officially loopy, why the hell would they?

Social services: They literally steal children from people.

There it is. I learned these harsh lessons through experience. Still, I try not to be bitter, and practice peace, tolerance and goodwill to all the peoples. That's my philosophy. I learned it from Buddhism. I'm not saying that my blood doesn't boil when I have doctors insisting that I'm a dangerous man, but I have total control over any rising anger these days. I get sad, morose and faithless at times, but never ever raging. That's not me.

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A Targeted Individual

A Menace to Society

Anvil Samsara

Andrew has performed his spoken word at Contact Theatre Manchester and South Bank Centre London. His publications include Not Shut Up and The Big Issue. He has collaborated with the creative works of prisoners, patients and refugees. In 2008 his collages were displayed in a Co-operative art exhibition. Since then he has recorded over forty electronic music tracks and designed forty ceramic sculptures. He is currently working on a cyber goth novel while editing a substantial backlist, besides compiling a hardcopy portfolio of digital photo-montages and sketches.

More About Andrew Donegan

Andrew was ousted from school into a secure psych unit as a teenager. Since then he has been homeless, imprisoned, and detained for several years under the Mental Health Act. Andrew is an ex-addict and a Voice-Hearer. He attempted suicide in the summer of 2015, but manages his demons thesedays by attending therapy groups, where he shares his otherworldly experiences with others. Simple things like poetry and weightlifting help motivate him. He enjoys pool, swimming, and working the punchbag. Andrew is an avid conspiracy theorist.